


a vision for the future

by thirty2flavors



Category: Borderlands (Video Games), Tales from the Borderlands - Fandom
Genre: Character Study, Established Relationship, F/M, Fish out of Water, Fluff, Humour, Light Angst, Post-Series, Swearing, sasha's various issues and insecurities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-10-30 19:46:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10883691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thirty2flavors/pseuds/thirty2flavors
Summary: Rhys had discovered the Luxe Starlines Cruise Gala Mixer, an absurd soiree which existed, as far as Sasha could tell, for the obscenely wealthy to congratulate each other on their innate superiority to every other living thing.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted a fish-out-of-water story for Sasha vs the corporate world. It took on a life of its own. 
> 
> Shoutout to the various people who answered my questions about the canon of the other Borderlands games only for me to ignore most of their sage advice. 
> 
> A line in here is borrowed verbatim from one of Sasha's deleted dialogue options.

“You want me to be your trophy wife.”

“No!” Rhys looked scandalized at the notion. “No, no, no, gross, of course not.” He beamed at her. “I want you to be my _employee_.”

Sasha raised an eyebrow.

“I mean, okay,” he amended, “not, like, an actual employee, I’m not actually _paying_ you, but…”

Sasha tilted her head.

“I… mean—I—uh.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Okay, that… doesn’t sound much better, does it?” He waved his hands. “Anyway, the point is, I need your brain, not your pretty face.” He paused, his expression suddenly cocky in the way it often was before he said something that would make someone want to hurt him. “Although the pretty face is a bonus—ow!”

Sasha showed her appreciation by whacking his stomach and rolling her eyes. 

“Can’t you take Vaughn and _his_ pretty face? He’s used to all this corporate… stuff...” She gestured to the air around them.

“Vaughn worked in _accounting_ ,” said Rhys, like it explained everything. “This is way more your speed.”

“Hobnobbing with a bunch of jerks?”

“Talking rich people out of their money,” he corrected with a grin. 

His enthusiasm was contagious. Sasha folded her arms across her chest and looked away before she caught it and let herself get roped into something she really didn’t want to do: networking.

Even having a self-titled CEO who had recently pillaged an admittedly-disappointing Vault wasn’t enough to save Atlas from its first inevitable, predictable roadblock—a desperate need for cash. To that end, Rhys had discovered the Luxe Starlines Cruise Gala Mixer, an absurd soiree which existed, as far as Sasha could tell, for the obscenely wealthy to congratulate each other on their innate superiority to every other living thing.

More optimistically, or perhaps more naively, Rhys described it as the perfect hunting ground for new investors, venture capital, and various other jargon-y words that sounded to Sasha like a lot of white noise. This, he assured her, was where business _really_ happened, in backdoor deals and handshakes over canapes. 

And this year, through pure, dumb luck, it was scheduled to take place in Pandora’s orbit.

All of that was well and good. She respected that Atlas meant a lot to him, even if she couldn’t begin to fathom why. She’d even sort of been looking forward to hearing him recount the stories of his schmoozing. 

Right up until the point he’d asked her to go with him.

“C’mon, Sash, it’ll be fun,” he insisted, dipping into her line of sight to catch her eyes. “Like a con, right? Like the old days!”

Sasha regarded him skeptically. He was severely overestimating the amount of nostalgia she harboured for her own not-so-distant past. 

“You’re a big boy,” said Sasha, “I think you can handle it on your own.”

“Well, sure, I could, but that’s no fun. Plus Atlas’ll look way more respectable with two whole employees.” He took each of her hands in his, unfurling her arms from her chest as he swung their joined hands back and forth. Apparently out of real arguments, he settled instead on puppydog eyes. “Pretty please?”

It was probably his most compelling case yet, damn him. Sasha groaned and rolled her eyes towards the ceiling. “Rhys…”

“All right, all right,” he relented, dropping her hands and straightening up. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.” He took a step back, frowning in thought. “Hmm. I could give Fiona a call...”

That did it. Sasha scrunched up her face, wrestling with herself. The idea of another Rhys-and-Fiona misadventure while she sat on the sidelines suddenly seemed a much worse fate than rubbing elbows with the rich. 

She blew out a breath and swatted lightly at his chest again. “Hey. Nuh-uh. My sister is not your date to this… whatever it is. I’ll go.”

“Really? You sure?”

She closed her eyes and sighed again. “Yes, fine.” 

“All right! High-five!” 

Sasha obliged, her palm stinging a little after sharp contact with his prosthetic. The self-satisfaction in the smile that bloomed across Rhys’ face told her he’d never really intended to invite Fiona in the first place. 

Maybe he was a better salesman than she thought. 

—

“I hate it,” Sasha grumbled.

She tugged at the sides of her dress, which—for the amount of fabric involved—had been outrageously priced. The clingy material felt flimsy, and the neckline dipped a little lower than she might have liked, but by far the most irritating part was that the length and tightness of the cut would make sprinting very difficult. The shoes were no help, either, though she appreciated finally being able to see over Rhys’ shoulders. 

When she’d said as much to Rhys, he’d said, “There, uh, isn’t usually any sprinting at these things,” and Sasha had realized, not without embarrassment, that she’d never before been in a scenario where sprinting for your life didn’t crack the list of top ten likely outcomes. 

Perhaps it should have been comforting, but it only made the whole affair seem more alien. She decided, if she needed to, she’d ditch the shoes, tear the slit higher, and hope for the best. 

She tugged once more at the dress, then looked over at Rhys, leaning against the wall, and narrowed her eyes enviously. It was deeply unfair that he got to wear more-or-less what he normally did, just with a sleeker black jacket and an extra helping of hair product. 

“You look… I mean… wow,” said Rhys, eyes widening in appreciation as he gave her an up-and-down. 

Sasha cleared her throat.

Off her look, he blanched a little, then straightened up. “Uh, but, y’know, you’re uncomfortable and you don’t look like yourself, so, that’s…” He stuck out his tongue and pointed both thumbs down.

Sasha snorted. “Enjoy the view while it lasts, buddy, because I am never wearing anything like this again.” She struck a pose, one hand on her hip, before reaching up up to fasten her hair into a tidy bun.

“Noted.” He moved away from the wall and walked over to her, grinning. “Hey. I got you something.” 

Her fingers stilled in her hair as she watched him pull a small gift box out of his pocket, her heart tripping over itself. 

“Oh,” she said dumbly, staring at it. “I. Um.” 

“Go on.” Rhys shook the box invitingly. Something rattled inside. 

Securing the last of her dreadlocks in the elastic, Sasha took the box, trying not to let her imagination get the best of her. Was this a thank-you gift for going with him? She knew it would be well-intentioned, but whether it would be tasteful was always something of a gamble with Rhys. 

Torn between excitement and trepidation, she flipped open the lid.

“Oh my God,” she said flatly. She blinked twice to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating.

“Right!” chirped Rhys.

Sasha blinked again. The contents of the tiny gift box didn’t change.

Business cards. 

Business cards, with her name on them.

“Oh my God,” she repeated, duller this time, as she reached into the box to pull one from the stack.

“Now you’re totally legit!” said Rhys. “I mean. Sort of.”

Sasha ran her thumb over the embossed text of the card that bore her name, her mind incapable of much more beyond a static hum. At least the pure shock of it had eclipsed any potential for disappointment. 

Looking up at Rhys’ beaming face, she tried to remind herself that this probably was a romantic gesture in his eyes. The freak. 

She squinted at the text below her name. “What the hell is a… _visioneer_?”

He laughed, waving his extra-polished silver hand dismissively. “A job title just vague enough to sound impressive and hip enough that no one will want to reveal themselves by asking what it means. It’s perfect!”

“I couldn’t be your, I don’t know, CFO or something?”

He rubbed the back of his neck, his smile dimming. “You wanna talk profit margins and overhead costs and revenue streams all night?”

“God, no.”

“There you go, then. Visioneer.” He smirked. “Atlas’ first.”

“Atlas’ _last_ ,” she muttered. But then, seeing his face fall, she amended, “You have to give your employees real job titles, Rhys.”

“Maybe.” 

“Seriously. You can’t be that guy.” She adopted as professional an expression as she could, which wasn’t much. “In fact, as Atlas’ foremost visioneer, I’m insisting.”

“ _Well_ ,” he said, “I mean, if that’s your expert opinion—”

“It is. As visioneer, it’s my solemn duty to tell you when you’re being a douchebag.”

“Sounds like a tough job.”

“Demanding but rewarding.” She lifted her chin. “So rewarding I even do it pro-bono.” 

He smirked, and she smirked back at him, tucking the stack of business cards into her tiny bag—it wasn’t like much else fit in there, anyway. 

“Such commitment,” he said.

She straightened up. “Well, you not being a douchebag is something I’m very passionate about.” 

Rhys stepped closer to her, and as she gauged the reduced distance between his face and hers, Sasha decided these shoes weren’t so bad, pinchy and teetering though they were. 

“Atlas appreciates your hard work and dedication,” he told her, resting his right hand on her hip, the metal heavy through the fabric of her dress.

She walked her fingers up the buttons of his jacket until they reached his collar and settled at the back of his neck. “It better.” 

His expression changed to the fuzzy sort of smile that usually accompanied his brain fizzling out when she was in close proximity, a phenomenon she still found herself delighted by. She felt herself leaning forward, closing what remained of the gap between them, when—

“Hey,” said Rhys, and from the way it startled her, Sasha had to admit her brain had been fizzling a little, too. “Just—uh—before I forget, I was thinking—at this thing we should probably, um… _this_ is probably… not… we should probably not do _this_.” He gestured between them with his free hand.

Sasha raised an eyebrow, pulling her head back to take better stock of the look on his face. “Are you… trying to break up with me?”

“No!” he yelped, panicked enough that some affection bled through her irritation. “No, no, no, of course not, I just. Um.” He paused for a second, apparently struggling to formulate a complete sentence. “I just think we probably shouldn’t, you know, advertise that we’re together.”

She took a step back and folded her arms, eyebrow still raised. “Advertise. Right. And here I’d already printed you 500 business cards that say ‘Sasha’s boyfriend’.” 

He laughed in the strangled, nervous way he usually did when he knew he was fucking something up. “Look, it’s not… I just think it’ll come across poorly if people think I’m dating my subordinate.”

“ _Subordinate?_ ” 

Rhys’ mouth dropped open—probably so he could try and cram his other foot in there, too—but Sasha waved a hand to cut him off. 

“No, no, stop talking before you make it worse.” She stepped out of his reach and pulled the strap of her bag over her neck. “Fine, somehow I’ll find a way to keep from throwing myself at you all night. Can we go and get this over with, then?” 

It looked like he wanted to say something else, but decided—wisely—to simply shut his mouth and nod. Sasha breezed past him, heels clacking as she went. 

“For the record,” she called back, “that solemn duty I mentioned? Now. Now is a good example.”

—

“What’s a luxury starliner passing by Pandora for, anyway?” she’d asked, and Rhys had shrugged.

“I dunno. Rich people?” he’d answered, as if that was an explanation unto itself. 

Maybe it was. She could imagine them all staring down at Pandora from afar, whispering salacious, exaggerated tales of its danger and its riches, auctioning off bits of it to each other like it was theirs to own. Sasha had no deep love for her planet—she’d spent her whole life wanting to get off it, and it had certainly put her through plenty of hell—but the thought still made her skin crawl. 

People like that made Pandora what it was and people like her had to live with it. 

But their voyeurism meant that for the second time Sasha found herself heading off-planet. In the shuttle she amused herself with the zero gravity, setting her bag mid-air and marvelling as it hung in place. The novelty of it would be long lost on most of the people she was about to meet. She liked knowing she had something they didn’t. 

Still, it was hard not to think of the last time she’d been on a ship—screaming at Finch, Gortys panicking, August bleeding, Fiona and Rhys left behind on a crashing space station. She turned to Rhys, who looked faintly nauseated, and looped her pinky finger around his. 

He’d been pretty quiet since his graceless request earlier, probably fearful of irritating her any further before they even got there. She decided to put him out of his misery.

“All right, tell me whatever it is I need to know.”

That was like opening the floodgates. He rambled on for the rest of their trip about tactics and goals and key messages. The objective was simple enough: put Atlas back on people’s radar, pique some interest, and get some cash. The intensity of the infodump reminded her of working jobs with Fiona, hastily trying to fill each other in on all the lies they’d told, and despite it all she found herself enjoying it. 

It helped, too, that Rhys was buzzing with excitement. She filtered through his speech for the bits she could retain and let the rest wash over her, appreciating his energy instead. He was running down the guest-list, detailing what he knew of the attendees, when she finally had to cut him off.

“Okay, there’s… no way I’m going to remember all these people,” she admitted. Faces and names were far easier to memorize when the consequence of getting one wrong was getting shot, not getting iced out of cocktail hour. “How did you even get us invited to this thing?”

“I… may have hacked into their system and added our names to the list,” he said with a shrug.

 _Of course_ , she thought. But she sent him an impressed smile. “You’ve put a lot of thought into this.”

“Knowing who you’re meeting with is the name of the game. Then it's just a matter of saying what they want to hear until they say yes.”

Sales, Sasha decided, was not substantially any different from grifting.

“And if you need a cheat sheet…” He winked at her with his ECHO eye. “I was pretty good at sales,” he said, in a voice that implied he was underestimating himself for the sake of modesty. 

Sasha’s smile turned to a confused frown. “I thought you worked in data mining.” 

“Uh, that too. Also propaganda. And programming for, like, one internship.” He shrugged. “I hopped around a lot. It was the quickest way to move up.” Their shuttle docked with a tiny jerk, and as the artificial gravity kicked in, he stood up, puffing up his chest a little. “I’m a man of many talents, Sasha.” 

“Yeah? You should show me some sometime.” She stood to follow him, adjusting the hem of her dress as well as the ridiculous bra that went under it. 

Then she blinked. 

“Wait, hang on, did you say _propaganda_?” 

—

“We _could_ just rob a bank instead,” Sasha suggested. It might be more enjoyable.

“Ahh, see, in my five-year plan, ‘major corporate scandal’ isn’t scheduled until year 4, so…”

“Pity.” 

He flashed a grin in return, then walked up to the droid that was running registration, checking in for both of them. Sasha hung back, fiddling with the strap of her bag and doing her best not to gawk. 

The starliner was even more ostentatious than she had been expecting. In its own way it was worse than Helios, which, for all its horrors, had to leave its peons wanting to give them something to aspire to. Present company excluded, Sasha found it hard to believe anyone else on this ship had ever wanted for much of anything. 

Enormous windows on either side of the dining hall offered a panoramic view of Elpis on one side and Pandora on the other. The carpet was thick and plush, the fixtures glittering with gold. Robot butlers whizzed about with trays of drinks and hors d'oeuvres. An anti-gravity fountain in one corner sent giant balls of glistening water floating up and down like an enormous lava lamp. All around the room, in elaborate spreads, was more food than Sasha had ever seen.

It was the sort of place she and Fiona used to fantasize about when they were sleeping rough in the streets of Hollow Point, making up stories of what they’d do when they finally struck it rich. 

What she’d never considered as a kid was how out of place she’d feel. 

“All good, we can go in,” said Rhys, approaching her again. He leaned in, lowering his voice to an excited whisper. “They don’t even have name tags or anything! I thought they might, you know—registration and stuff—but I guess they’re too classy for that. Too classy for name tags. That’s classy.” He held out the crook of his arm. “Shall we?”

Sasha looked at his arm, then looked back up at him quizzically, folding her own arms resolutely across her chest. 

“No dating subordinates, remember, _boss_?”

“Oh. Yeah. Uh. Right.” He ran his hand nervously through his hair and beckoned her forward instead. 

Sasha shook her head and followed after him, her arms still folded protectively before she straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. She could take care of herself, had taken care of herself, in far worse scenarios than this; she was absolutely not the sort of person who needed to be escorted somewhere, anyway. 

Even if it might have been sort of nice to have a familiar touch.

The room was already buzzing with nicely-dressed people holding champagne flutes, and Sasha cast an analytical look around at all of them, sizing them up as best she could and making mental notes of who looked confident, who looked anxious, whose wealth seemed more performative than genuine. She might not have an ECHO eye, or Fiona’s intuition, but she was good at what she did. 

She sidled up next to Rhys, whose golden eye was flickering wildly as he scanned the room. Momentarily she wondered if he knew how freaky it looked when he did that, then realized he probably thought it looked cool.

“Okay, plan B,” she said, voice low, “you chat everyone up, I steal their wallets.”

Rhys’ expression was somewhere between amused and alarmed. “Interesting proposition, I appreciate the initiative, but how’s about this: we both try _really_ hard not to do anything that’s going to get us shoved out an airlock.”

She scoffed. “Pft, like I’d get caught.”

Now his expression was just alarmed. 

“Sasha, for _once_ we are doing something together that isn’t dangerous. Please do not make it dangerous.” He pressed his palms together in prayer and pointed them towards her, begging. “Please. Please do not give anyone any reason to murder us, or try to murder us, or even think about murdering us. Please let’s just have one evening where murder is, like, totally off the table, _please_ —”

“Okay, okay, sheesh! Worrywart.” But his relief made her smile, and she nodded her chin towards his eye. “Hey, what’s that thing say about me?”

The eye lit up as he focused on her. “World’s Best Visioneer.”

“Ha ha.” But she was smiling. “Seriously though. I’m curious.”

But Rhys was no longer listening, staring at something just over Sasha’s shoulder. She followed his line of sight over to a smarmy looking man in a suit Sasha found almost offensively ugly. 

“Who’s the douchebag?” she asked from the corner of her mouth.

“Apparently someone truly terrible at keeping track of his money, and so fabulously wealthy he can get away with it.” He grinned. “Let’s say hello.”

—

They did say hello, to the man in the ugly suit and to several after him. 

Sasha slipped into character like a worn pair of shoes: a polite smile, calculated movements, a trilling laugh and a voice just a little bit higher than her own. It was easy but boring, and since his enthusiasm wasn’t entirely feigned, she let Rhys do most of the talking.

He was better at this than her, and better than she’d expected. He made easy conversation about trivial things, humoured them in the right spots, waited for a natural opening before bringing up Atlas. It was—more or less—exactly how she and Fiona played the long game, when they could, except that he wasn’t lying. Not really. 

She ought to have been impressed. She was, a little bit. 

Mostly she was uncomfortable. She didn’t want to think about why. 

Instead, she helped herself to a glass of champagne, and then a second. And a third. 

“You’re… thirsty,” observed Rhys, as they spent a rare moment alone surveying a buffet table. 

Careful to maintain the professional boundary of distance between them, Sasha shrugged. “Free booze, right?” 

He looked at her oddly, and Sasha seized the opportunity to grab the the last cracker-covered-in-brown-stuff out from under his shiny chrome hand before he could object. (Whatever the brown stuff was, it was delicious.) 

“I think we should split up,” she said simply. “We’ll cover more ground.”

His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Is everything—”

“Besides,” she continued, adopting a competitive air, “then you won’t be cramping my style.”

That worked; Rhys sent her a smug grin as he walked away to mingle elsewhere. “Yeah, we’ll see about that.”

She maintained the smirk until his back was turned, then winced. _Not the mark_ , she reminded herself. _Definitely not the person you’re meant to be lying to_. 

It wasn’t a big lie. Barely even a lie, really. If someone tallied up all the lies Sasha had ever told in the course of her life, and ranked them in severity, this would be at the bottom. It might not even make the list at all. 

Valiantly ignoring both her conscience and the voice in her head that said she’d have to confront things sooner or later, she set her sights on a woman standing next to a large ice sculpture. Tipping back the last of her champagne, she reassembled her game face and walked to tap the woman on the elbow. 

“I’m so sorry to bother you, but I _had_ to come over here. I _love_ your shoes.”

—

In terms of both productivity and overall enjoyment, Sasha figured that working alone about broke even.

On one hand, she _really_ hated most of these people.

One man went an entire conversation without looking up from Sasha’s chest. A woman said her hair was “interesting” in a voice that made it sound like a synonym for “hideous”. Most of them seemed preoccupied with broadcasting their own good fortune; they’d namedrop people or planets or companies as though she should be impressed, casually reference the cost of their belongings in a way that would definitely get them mugged on Pandora. 

In the simplest terms, they were assholes. Sasha was used to assholes. What bothered her more was the feeling she couldn’t shake that all of these assholes could see right through her. 

Being a fraud was one thing. _Feeling_ like a fraud was another.

On the other hand, working alone made it easier to ignore whatever-it-was that squirmed in her belly when she looked over at Rhys and saw him having the time of his life. 

“...is it that you do?” asked the man she was speaking to, mercifully pulling Sasha out of her own head.

As rich jerks went, this one wasn’t so bad. Aldrich was about Sasha’s height, twice her weight and thirty years her senior. He’d been polite, at least. Had maintained eye contact. Had only moved to show off his expensive watch once. 

“Oh!” Balancing her wine in one hand, she reached into her bag and handed him one of her cards. “I’m with Atlas, actually.”

She watched his brow furrow as Aldrich looked at the card, but—as Rhys had predicted—if the job title struck him as odd, he didn’t question it. 

“Atlas!” he huffed, surprised but not displeased. “There’s a name I haven’t heard in a while. Thought you were bought out. ‘Course...”

“We’re rebuilding,” she said quickly, before he got too far along that train of thought. “And under new management. That’s our CEO over there.” 

She scanned the crowd to point out Rhys. Standing on the other side of the large room, she could just make out the side of his head, tilted back in laughter with whomever he was speaking to. 

Her fingers tightened around the stem of her wineglass. 

“Well,” said the man, “I’m glad to hear it! Never did find anything I liked as much as my old Cyclops.”

The smile that lit up Sasha’s face this time was genuine. 

“I’ve got a Silver,” she told him eagerly. “It's _art_.” 

The conversation flowed smoothly after that, as they compared weapon make and models, debated specs, argued over range versus accuracy. She was pretty sure he’d never actually used any of these outside the safety of a firing range and maybe some recreational hunting, but he knew his stuff, or at least the theory, and she appreciated that. She began to relax.

“I’ve gone dry,” Aldrich said after a while, holding up his empty glass. “Can I get you something?”

Sasha lifted her wine glass, still mercifully half-full. “Still got some.”

He didn’t press, which was a relief. “Well, then, excuse me a moment.” 

Aldrich turned to head to the bar, and he was only gone thirty seconds or so before Rhys’ voice buzzed in her ear.

 _“Not to question your methods or anything, but you two seem friendly,”_ he said.

Sasha lifted a finger to her ear as she looked for the source. Eventually she caught Rhys watching her from across the room, looking smug, eyebrows quirked.

She returned the expression. “You worried?”

_“Should I be?”_

She shrugged, turning away to look out the window at Elpis. “You _did_ say I was a free agent tonight.”

_“That is… not… exactly what I said.”_

His voice was slightly strangled, and she smirked at her reflection in the glass.

“Should’ve been more specific, then,” she said lightly. “You know I like older men.”

 _“Ha ha.”_

“And he knows his guns. Unlike some people.”

 _“Hey, I… am getting better!”_ But the indignation was quickly overtaken by interest. _“That’s good though, right? Gun nut?”_

Sasha looked over her shoulder, watching Aldrich negotiate with the bartender. “Oh yeah. Big Atlas fan. Might be something. I’ll keep you posted.”

 _“See, I knew you’d be good at this.”_

The pride in Rhys’ voice had her biting her bottom lip as she looked down at her wine. “Easy guess; I’m good at everything.”

 _“Yeah, you are,”_ he agreed, and she felt herself flush.

Elsewhere, Aldrich turned away from the bar, drink in hand. 

Sasha ducked her head. “Rhys, gotta go.”

_“Go get ‘em.”_

She dropped her finger from her ear and straightened up, trying to settle the dopey smile on her face into something more professional as Aldrich approached. 

“Quite a view, isn’t it?” Aldrich asked as he reached her, gesturing with his beer towards Elpis. 

It really was. Elpis looked remarkable even from the surface of Pandora; here, so close, its cracked surface gleaming against the blackness of space, it was mesmerizing. 

“Yeah,” she agreed. “It is.” 

“Better without that godawful space station, too,” Aldrich added.

It took Sasha by surprise, and she frowned; she’d expected Helios to be popular with this crowd. 

“I shouldn’t say it like that,” he corrected himself. “People lost everything in that crash.”

She looked away from Elpis to study Aldrich, a small but sincere smile tugging the corner of her lips. Maybe she’d underestimated some of these people, the way she’d once underestimated Rhys and Vaughn.

“I mean, people who lost _millions_ ,” he continued. “Friends who went bankrupt!”

Her smile flickered from genuine to forced. 

“Thousands of people died,” she heard herself say. 

Aldrich waved one hand. “Well, death’s an occupational hazard when you work for Hyperion, isn’t it?” His own smile turned to one of self-satisfaction. “Now, myself, I made a lot of money. I’d had lots of Hyperion stock, see, but I cashed out, just about a month before all that business. Moved it all to competitors instead. Prices soared when Helios came down.”

“Lucky you,” she managed. 

“Ah, not luck, intuition,” he corrected, smugger than ever. “The writing was on the wall for Hyperion, wasn’t it, after Handsome Jack died? Shame what happened to him.” Noticing Sasha’s face, the tight line her lips were forming, he chuckled. “Oh, I know, I know, you’re probably not his biggest fan, Atlas and all. But you’ve got to admit the man had a vision.”

“A _vision_?” Sasha repeated. The stem of her wine glass strained in her grip.

“Absolutely. All good leaders do.” He tipped his beer towards her as a sort of toast. “Ask your CEO, I’m sure he’d say the same.”

The laugh that escaped Sasha was high-pitched and jagged. 

“I’m sure.” She pounded back the rest of her wine, then set her empty glass on the buffet table. “Excuse me. I’ve gotta go vomit.” Her eyes flicked to the plate of hors d'oeuvres he was holding. “Think the dip’s gone bad.”

She walked away before he could say another word, blood boiling and heartbeat ringing in her ears.


	2. Chapter 2

Even the bathrooms were fancy. 

A larger common area, complete with vanity mirrors and a couple of armchairs, branched into individual little rooms rather than stalls. Sasha was grateful for the privacy, because as soon as she shut the door behind her, she made an aggravated growl and kicked the trashcan.

“Ow.” The heels did not offer her foot the same level of protection as her boots. “Shit.”

Rubbing her sore foot, she balanced against the wooden door and whacked her head against it a few times for good measure. She wanted to shoot something. She wanted to punch Aldrich right in his smug, callous face. She wanted to do quite a lot of things that were probably in direct violation of Rhys’ “no getting thrown out the airlock” rule.

“Shit, shit, shit,” she repeated to thin air.

God, she hated these people.

Not wanting to ruin her makeup by splashing her face, she settled for running cold water over her wrists. Maybe she should’ve let Rhys invite Fiona instead. Or they could have brought Fiona with them. Fiona would appreciate what a cesspool of slimy, selfish, soulless—

 _“Heyyyy, Sasha,”_ buzzed Rhys’ voice in her ear, making her jump. _“Uh. Where are you?”_

“I’m in the bathroom,” she ground out.

_“Oh. ...Yeah. Right. That makes sense. Sorry. I couldn’t see you and I thought—”_

“That I’d got thrown out an airlock?” 

She could hear his sheepish smile. _“Well, you never know.”_ There was a pause, and then, _“Hey, are you all right, though? You sound a bit—”_

“I’m fine,” she said. 

_“You sure? Because you sound like you want to shoot something. Me, possibly.”_

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Sasha tried to remind herself that although Rhys was the reason she was here, he wasn’t the actual source of her anger. She crossed to the tiny window and leaned on the ledge, willing the darkness outside to bring some calm. 

“No, I’m fine, I just… wanted a breather.” 

_“Things not working out with your new boyfriend?”_

He was trying to lighten the mood, and couldn’t reasonably have been expected to know that mentioning Aldrich would only stoke the flames of her irritation. She groaned, thudding her head against the glass of the window.

“God, that _asshole_ ,” she snarled. “He—”

She broke off as she said it, gritting her teeth. 

_“What? What’d he do? Sasha?”_  
  
Eyes closed, Sasha took a deep breath. She wanted to tell Rhys everything Aldrich had said, wanted the catharsis of mutual fury—only she wasn’t sure fury was how Rhys would react. 

From the moment Helios had first appeared in the sky, Sasha had wanted it gone. She’d imagined its fall many times before it happened, albeit usually with herself and her loved ones watching safely from Pandora’s surface. Pandora—and probably the galaxy—was better off without it. Even now that she’d been forced to concede the possibility that not every single Hyperion employee was a soulless heartless monster, she still suspected people like Rhys and Vaughn were the minority. She didn’t revel in the crash of Helios, but she hadn’t lost sleep over it, either.

Rhys had, though. Still did, sometimes. And that was without throwing Handsome Jack the visionary into it.

She let out the breath she was holding. Rhys was enjoying himself. What would be the point in upsetting him?

“Nothing,” she said gently, rubbing her forehead. “He’s just an asshole, don’t worry about it.” 

_“I feel like you’re pretty familiar with assholes, and—”_

“Just… stay away from him. I mean it. He’s not worth it.”

 _“Are you sure? ‘Cause I could always…”_ There was a second of silence. _“Oh. Uh, I made, like, a fist and a punching motion, but… you can’t see it. It was super cool, though. Very manly and impressive.”_

That earned him a smile he couldn’t see, as well as a laugh. “Now who’s going to get themselves thrown out the airlock?”

 _“It’d be worth it.”_ Pause. _“Okay, I mean, it probably wouldn’t be, but—”_

“You’re an idiot.” 

But she was still smiling, her heart full to the brim with affection. 

Time to stop hiding. 

She turned from the window and opened the door, stepping back into the common area. Sitting in an armchair, one long leg folded over the other, was Rhys. Preoccupied by preening in the mirror, he didn’t notice her right away. 

“Here to rescue me?” 

He jumped to his feet at the sound of her voice and took about a half a step forward before catching himself and staying back. “Just checking in.”

Damn. She really wanted to kiss him.

She settled for cocking her hip. “And checking on your hair.”

He shrugged, grinning, and Sasha smiled back. She walked to the doorway back into the main hall, and Rhys followed her. Side by side, they surveyed the room again.

“So, you having better luck than I am?” asked Sasha.

“Well, no one’s given me a billion dollars, if that’s what you’re asking.” 

“No? Thought you were supposed to be good at this, hot shot,” Sasha teased.

“Hey, I’m working on it.” He gestured across the room to a couple standing over by the anti-grav fountain. “See the woman over there, in the red dress? That’s Luvia Davenport.”

“Should I know who that is?”

“Probably not, but I do. She was a big deal at Hyperion. She’s got a bunch of different distribution plants, on the Edens and a few others. Deep pockets.” 

Sasha studied the woman across the room. Luvia had the posture of a woman who knew her own importance. 

“So you’ve met her?”

Rhys laughed. “God, no. I was never high enough on the corporate ladder.” 

“You are now,” Sasha pointed out. 

“Yeah. Guess I am.”

The look of arrogance on his face as he adjusted his collar would’ve been convincing to anyone who didn’t know him as well as Sasha did. Unfortunately for Rhys, she was the only one around, and she recognized it for the rallying effort that it was.

She nudged him with a strictly-professional elbow. “So go talk to her, Mr. President.”

Rhys’ face twitched like he was trying, unsuccessfully, to hide how he felt about that nickname. (Sasha would have to remember it.) “Right. Yeah. I should. Right?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Sasha emphasized with a roll of her eyes. “Go on.”

Still he didn’t move, looking from Sasha to Luvia and back again. “You coming this time?”

Sasha shook her head. Aldrich had taken up just about all the poker-face energy she had. “Nah, you got this.” 

He pouted a little. “What if I need my trusted visioneer to stop me being a douchebag?”

“Honestly, I think being a douchebag is probably an asset in this crowd.” 

“Yeah, maybe.” Rhys ran one last self-conscious hand through his hair. “Well, wish me luck.” He walked forward, but turned to look back at her before he’d gone very far, grinning, two hands’ worth of finger guns pointing at her. “Hey, you know, in a few years we could be on the invite list for real.”

Sasha smiled, practiced and easy. “Not if you don’t get going.” 

It was only once his back was to her that she allowed her face to fall. 

The twisting feeling in her stomach had returned.

—

The bartender was a robot, because of course it was.

Currently, that made it preferable company to every living person in the room.

It also had access to all the alcohol, which definitely made it Sasha’s favourite thing at this very moment. Now that she realized what was bothering her, she also knew alcohol would do nothing to solve it.

Still, ever the optimist, she figured it was worth a shot. Literally. 

“God, I don’t care,” she told the bartender, dropping her bag on the counter with a clatter. “Something strong, please.”

“The highest alcohol content I can give you is 98.7%,” said the bartender, its voice somewhere on the midway point between Loader Bot’s halting speech and Gortys’ surprising fluency. “I am required by intergalactic law to warn you that—”

“Ugh, uh, yeah, nevermind. Maybe just an Old-Fashioned, thanks.”

The bartender’s expression was unreadable, as it had no expression, but it got to work making her drink.

“I was a bartender for a while,” Sasha told it, leaning on her elbows over the counter. “It was okay. Customers were rude.” She considered the clientele at the Purple Skag. “You probably get way fewer barfights than we did.”

“I am not programmed to aspire to more,” it said.

“Oh. Well. That’s… bleak.” 

“It does not bother me. I am not programmed to aspire to more,” the bartender reiterated.

“...Right. Well, hey, no judgment. Some of my best friends are robots.”

The bartender merely stared at her. “Please do not patronize me.”

 _God_ , even the robots in this place didn’t like her. 

Sasha winced and massaged her forehead. “Sorry.” 

Taking a sip of her drink, she cast a look over her shoulder. Rhys had finally made his way to Luvia, talking to her now with a wide smile. Luvia didn’t look totally bored, which Sasha supposed was a good sign. Mostly.

“Hey,” she asked the bartender, “can you keep a secret?”

The bartender’s unblinking eyes looked resolutely back at her.

“I am not permitted to share personal information with other guests,” it told her.

“Uh… good enough.” With one last look around to make sure no one was paying attention to her (they weren’t; they hadn’t been all night), Sasha leaned over the bar and lowered her voice. “I’m not really supposed to be here.” Then, remembering the airlock rule, she hastily added, “I mean, I’m on the list, I just… these people… they’re not _my_ people, you know?”

“I do not,” said the bartender.

“I grew up on Pandora,” she continued. “Like, _dirt poor_ on Pandora. Like, I’ve-eaten-out-of-the-garbage poor on Pandora. All this…” She gestured broadly to the room behind her. “This is crazy. Like, it’s _stupid_ how much money is in this room right now.”

“Would you like some peanuts?” asked the bartender.

Sasha took another sip of her drink. Finally her blood-alcohol level was reaching the point where her head felt a little too light and the room seemed just a bit fuzzy around the edges. 

“The thing is, growing up that way, I didn’t make, like, future plans, you know? Future plans were ‘what’s our next score?’ and ‘what am I gonna eat tonight?’ Sure, Fiona and I used to talk about what we’d do when we finally made it big, but it was just talk. It wasn’t _real_. Not business cards and venture capital and five year plans real.”

With another taste of her drink, she looked over the rim of her glass at the bartender. 

“And that’s fine, right? And I mean, it’s fine, it’s—whatever. So you make it up as you go along. That’s what I’ve always done. It’s fine.”

She swirled the ice in her glass and took another swig.

“But other people, they have all those plans—the next thirty years all mapped out in their heads. And sometimes maybe you meet someone like that and you kinda start to think you’d like to be part of that future they’re planning. Just pencilled into the schedule somewhere, right? Only... you also think that future they want doesn’t have room for someone like you. You know?”

“I do not,” the bartender repeated. Then, “You are distressed. I am programmed to provide three types of comfort. 1. Alcohol. 2. Peanuts. 3. Compliments. Please select the type of comfort you—”

“What? No, sorry, I don’t need... did you say compliments? Why would—”

“You have selected compliments.” The bartender’s eyes lit up as though scanning her and then it spoken again with a forced cheer quite unlike Gortys’ warmth. “Wow! You are very beautiful! Your clothing selection is excellent! You—”

Sasha silenced the bartender with a raised palm. “Okay, that’s enough of whatever that was, thanks.” She paused. “Do… do I tip you?”

“I do not require currency,” said the bartender. 

Embarrassed now and certainly a little tipsy, Sasha stepped away from the bar and finished her drink. Held the right way, the empty glass reflected the room around her, including the red of Luvia’s dress. 

—

In retrospect, drunkenly spilling her guts to a robot bartender was probably not a high point in Sasha’s life. 

Of course, it would be hard pressed to make the list of lowest points, either—the competition in that arena was steep. But it was probably in the bottom 25%. The bottom third, definitely. Or was that the same thing? She couldn’t remember. She’d have to ask Vaughn.

Walking was also definitely harder than she remembered it being, what with the heels and the slight dizziness. She would very much like to go home now, she realized. How long did they have to be at this thing? 

She spotted Rhys easily in the crowd—he was so damn _tall_ —and was slightly surprised to find him still talking to Luvia. Must be going well. The initial twinge of bitterness was followed immediately by a pang of guilt. 

_You like Rhys_ , she reminded herself. She liked Rhys very much a lot, in ways that were slightly frightening to think about. _You want him to be happy._

And she did. She wanted all the nice things for him that people usually wanted for those they cared about: a full night’s sleep and long showers and good meals and realized dreams and all the rest. Really and truly. She just... 

Well, it was hard to imagine his future of handshakes and stock options and conference calls had much need for a pretend visioneer.

Against her better judgment, Sasha found herself moving closer to Rhys and Luvia, pretending to suddenly be captivated by the buffet table near them. Up close, Luvia struck an even more impressive figure—a strong jaw, a proud nose, rivers of silver running through her lush dark hair. Rhys’ voice was lost in the hum of conversation and the ambient string music, but Luvia’s, sharp and direct, cut through.

“I like you,” Sasha heard her say, “so I’m going to give you a piece of advice.” 

What Rhys’ reply was, Sasha couldn’t hear, but she knew it would be affirmative. Curiosity piqued for better or worse, she moved closer, careful to stay obscured by an ice sculpture.

“Forget Pandora,” Luvia continued. “It’s a wash. It’s bad business.”

Sasha smirked down at a tray of cut vegetables, bracing herself for what she knew was coming: the plans to expand to the Edens, the casual commiseration over the depravity of Pandora. 

She didn’t like her planet. She liked the judgment of off-worlders even less. 

When she looked up, Rhys was rubbing the back of his neck with his right hand. “Have you been to Pandora?” 

Luvia let out a bark of laughter. “Not if you paid me.” She gestured toward the view of the planet through the window. “I don’t care what’s buried under the soil, I’ll stick to the view.”

Leave now, Sasha told herself. You don’t want to hear this. Leave now. 

Her feet wouldn’t seem to listen. 

Rhys hesitated. “Pandora is dangerous, but...”

“It’s not just dangerous, it’s a death trap,” said Luvia. “You sell a gun to a bandit, what do you think they’re going to do with it?” 

“I don’t—” 

“They use it to rob you,” she explained. “Or kill you, then rob you.”

From behind, Sasha could see the tense hunch of his shoulders. “That’s…” 

“Look how many companies bring themselves to the brink, squabbling over Pandora,” Luvia continued. “All for a horrible backwater planet crawling with criminals and savages—”

“They’re not savages,” Rhys snapped, so sharp Sasha’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.

Luvia, too, seemed taken aback, though she quickly recovered a smile. “Well, I mean—”

“No, they’re not.” The edge in Rhys’ voice was unfamiliar to Sasha. “They’re people. Good people, many of them, and they’re the ones who get stuck in the crossfire of all that… what did you call it? ‘Squabbling’.”

“They’re hardly helping themselves, are they, all that violence and lawlessness—no sane person would want to—”

“Helios was just as bad.” Then he shook his head. “Actually, no, Helios was _worse_ —”

Luvia scoffed. “Oh, please—”

“No, I worked there, and I've lived on Pandora, and I’m telling you, Helios was worse. People on Helios killed each other for the corner office. People on Pandora are just trying to survive.” 

For a tense second, Luvia was quiet. Through the distortion of the ice, Sasha didn’t have a clear view of her expression. 

“You’ve been on Pandora too long,” Luvia said finally, the veneer of politeness in her voice did little to mask the cold dismissal. “You’ve lost perspective.”

Rhys laughed at that, and Sasha bit back a smile. “Perspective? Seriously? Have you, like, spoken to anyone else in this room? Have you looked around? I mean—look at that fountain! It’s just, I mean, it’s _stupid_ , is what it is. That’s an objectively stupid fountain.” 

Sasha ducked her head, muffling a giggle into her fist. 

Luvia was not so amused. “You’re a fool,” she said simply, “and Pandora will ruin you.”

“Yeah, well, it hasn’t yet.”

That was the unceremonious end of that conversation; Luvia turned and walked away with a brisk air of indifference, and Rhys stayed as he was, waiting until Luvia was long gone before he let his shoulders slump and pinched the bridge of his nose. Before Sasha could walk around the ice sculpture to reveal herself dramatically, he sighed and made his way over to one of the robot butlers.

Sasha watched him go, chewing on her lip, and then grinned.

She had a better idea anyway.

—

“Rhys, you there?”

 _“Uh… hey, Sasha.”_ He sounded distracted. _“What’s up?”_

“Can you come here?”

_“Where… is ‘here’?”_

“Same as earlier.”

It took him longer to process that than it probably should’ve; he really was distracted. _“You mean the bathroom?”_

“Yep. Furthest door on the left. Come find me.” 

_“Yeah, sure, just… hang on a sec, I’m doing something.”_

Sasha rolled her eyes. “Would you just come over here, Robocop?”

 _“All right, all right! So demanding.”_ There was a pause. _“Wait, you’re okay, right? If you’re not that would be a good reason to be demanding, I guess, I just—”_

“Rhys,” she laughed, “less talking, more walking.”

 _“How do you know I’m not talking_ and _walking? I can actually do both at once, you know, contrary to what Fiona might have told you—”_

“Well, were you?”

Another pause. _“That’s not the point.”_

“Just get over here, dummy.” 

It wasn’t that long before there was a knock on the door and she opened it to find him standing there, forehead creased in confusion and concern.

“You _are_ okay, right?” he asked immediately, looking her up and down. “I heard the dip’s making people sick—”

Sasha replied by grabbing the front of his jacket and tugging him in for a kiss.

Rhys, to his overwhelming credit, had the presence of mind to pull the door shut behind him as he stumbled forward. He steadied himself with his hands on her hips, the fabric of her dress stretched tight across her stomach as he balled his fists around it. Sasha snaked her arms around his shoulders—god, it was nice being taller—and laced one hand into the hair at the back of his neck. 

“Sasha,” he said eventually, getting the words out in between her insistent kisses, “what is… happening… right now?”

“Kissing you. Obviously.”

“Well yeah, but… why?” 

It sounded a bit pitiful, like he wasn’t quite sure he really wanted the answer. Sasha trailed her mouth from his lips down his jaw to the swirled tattoo on his neck, and he sagged in her arms.

“Nevermind,” he mumbled, and Sasha smirked against his skin. “Don’t care why.”

His hand moved up until it found exposed skin, the cool metal of his fingers sending goosebumps across her back. She grazed her teeth along his tattoo and Rhys hummed appreciatively, leaning in further, pressing closer until they were flush against each other. Sasha took a step backwards to brace herself against the added weight, came up against the wall, and—

“Ow,” Rhys whined, pulling away to rub his forehead where he’d bumped it against the windowsill.

She couldn’t help herself; she laughed. 

He scowled at the offending bit of architecture, although it looked more like a pout. 

“Aw, babe.” She reached up to soothe the spot with her thumb, tangling the rest of her fingers in his hairline, and then wrinkled her nose. “You used way too much product. My fingers feel disgusting.”

“I used a perfectly reasonable amount of product, thank you.”

“Uh huh.” She ruffled his hair affectionately, then nudged him aside, moving to the sink to rinse her fingers. “How’d it go with Luvia?”

“Fine.” In the mirror, she saw his reflection move to fix his hair, then frown. “Actually, no, it, uh, it went pretty terribly.” 

She waited to see if he would elaborate, and when he didn’t, she turned to face him. “I’m sorry.”

Both his shrug and the smile that went with it were unconvincing. “Hey, well, you know, who needs… money… or… connections… to have a viable business…?”

Even through the fake optimism he looked deflated enough that Sasha gave his chest a sympathetic pat before she scrunched up her face in a confession. 

“I, um, may have eavesdropped a little bit.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. Sorry.” She nudged his shoulder with her knuckles. “I was proud of you, though.”

That perked him up. “Really?”

“Mmhmm.” She fiddled with the button at the top of his shirt. “Didn’t realize you were so fond of Pandora.”

“Pandora is... kind of the worst,” said Rhys, wrapping his hand around hers and holding it to his chest. “But, credit where it’s due, it _has_ given me some pretty great things.”

Her returning smile was shy. “Yeah?”

“I mean, that Vault was _super_ cool—”

“Fuck off.”

He dipped down to kiss her again instead, his thumb tracing light lines up and down her wrist. Sasha let herself relax into it, focusing on the softness of his lips, the quiet beat of his heart beneath her palm. 

Then she pulled back, staring at their joined hands with a small frown. 

“I’m never gonna be good at this, you know,” she admitted quietly.

“At... kissing? Uh, I dunno where you’ve been getting your feedback, Sash, but I gotta say—”

“No.” The noise she made was a bit too sad to qualify as a laugh. “I mean… this.” She nodded towards the closed door. “The... fancy party, rich people, shaking hands, _oh ha ha quite_ ...thing.” 

“...Oh.” She sensed, rather than saw, his frown. “Sasha, you… you’re really not as bad at this as you think you—”

“No, that’s not what...” she interrupted, shaking her head, shutting her eyes in exasperation. “I can fake it, sure—I can fake anything. But it’s not real, it’s not _me_.”

“Hey.” He nudged her with his shoulder, but Sasha stubbornly avoided his eyes until he tipped her chin up with his hand. “Everyone out there is faking, I promise you. Bluffing and posturing and pretending they’re more important than they are.” He laughed a little. “That’s basically all they do, all the time. Trust me.”

She shook her head. He wasn’t getting it. 

“It’s different for me, it’s…” She cast around for the words but found she was coming up empty. Finally, she sighed. “I’m not like them. I’m not like _you_.” 

She expected some sort of protest, a well-intended assurance that they bled the same colour or something equally trite. 

Instead he merely looked amused. “Yeah. I know.” He grinned a little. “That’s... sort of what I like about you.”

The sudden spark of anger was instinctual, and she scowled. “What, that I’m some sort of exotic conquest?”

“What?” he yelped back, grin vanishing as he floundered. “N-no, that’s—that’s not—no. No.” He tried again. “I mean because you’re… well, because you’re better than me. In, like, pretty much every way. Definitely better than everyone else out there.”

“Flattery,” she accused, though her incredulity was undermined by the smile she couldn’t quite hide.

“No, I mean it. You’re…” He seemed to consider it seriously for a moment, before giving a shy half-shrug. “I learn a lot from you.” 

Sasha tried, very nobly, to stop the blush that pooled in her cheeks and the stupid smile that went with it; she failed.

Encouraged, Rhys grinned again. “Except for anything to do with technology. You’re still really bad at that. Almost shockingly bad.”

She glared again, though there was no malice in it. “Well, not all of us can be half robot.”

“Not half! Like… eight per cent.” Remarkably, his grin stretched wider. “Vaughn calculated it once.”

That broke her composure, and she lurched forward, snickering into the crook of his neck. “Of course he did.”

Rhys wrapped both his arms around her in a loose hug, and Sasha leaned heavily into him, happy to take some of the weight off her heels. She slid one of her hands in between his jacket and his vest to rest along his ribs. 

“You might want to be with someone like Luvia one day,” she said after a moment, a gentle statement of fact rather than an accusation. “When you’re a big powerful CEO.”

She could see his nose wrinkle in distaste. “Nah.” Then, sensing her skepticism, he carried on. “I’ve been with people like her before. I've _been_ like that before. That’s not what I want anymore.” He looked down at her as best he could from his angle. “Pandora’s ruined me.”

It wasn’t a guarantee, but then again, as Sasha knew full well, the future never was. So she simply pressed a quick kiss to his neck.

“Yeah," she said, smiling, "I've heard it does that.”

His hand moved up to the space between her shoulder blades. “Wanna go home?”

Sasha lifted her head and looked towards the closed door, beyond which various wealthy assholes were still mingling without them. Then she turned to look the other way, out the window at the eerie, comforting darkness of space. 

“Mmmm…” With her hands on his waist she twisted them around so her back was to the window, then propped herself up, half-sitting, on the window ledge. “Yeah, but first, I have a better idea.” 

She hitched her dress up to rest high on her thigh and tilted her head, challenging. Rhys stared at her a minute, apparently struggling to process the information, before raising an eyebrow.

“You wanna have sex in a public bathroom?” he asked, and though he sounded amused, he also didn’t sound like he was ruling it out.

“For starters, it’s a _fancy_ public bathroom. In _space_.” She reached out, hooking her fingers through his belt loops and tugging him forward until her knees were on either side of his hips. “And, two, you should’ve known what you were getting into when you started dating a wild Pandoran savage.”

Rhys grinned wickedly at that. “Guess so.”

Then he kissed her, running both hands up her legs to hike her dress up around her hips. She returned the kiss eagerly, her hands fumbling blindly for his belt, and she’d nearly managed to get it undone when he suddenly laughed against her mouth.

Her hands froze and her brow furrowed. “What?”

“Just…” He snickered again, eyes still shut, forehead resting against hers. “I remembered…” More snickering. “So much for ‘somehow I’ll find a way to keep from throwing myself at you’.”

He was still laughing as Sasha rolled her eyes and gave a reprimanding pinch to the skin above his hip. 

“Oh, shut up,” she mumbled, and silenced him with another kiss.

— 

When they reemerged into the party later, Rhys’ hair refused to lie flat, Sasha’s lipcolour had almost entirely disappeared, and the slit at the back of her dress had torn a couple inches higher. 

The alcohol had worked its way out of her system by now, but Sasha was buzzing with something else that left her impervious to the disapproving stares. Catching Luvia’s eye from across the room, Sasha lifted her chin higher and felt a rush of satisfaction when Luvia looked away first.

She glanced at Rhys, whose lips were pressed together like he was trying very hard to look serious and professional and not like someone who had just had hurried sex in the restroom and might burst into giggles at any second. 

It was a losing game, she thought, looking at the red welt in the middle of his tattoo and smirking.

“Come on,” she told him, not quite able to keep the smugness out of her voice as she slid her hand into his and tugged towards the door. “Let’s go.” 

“Just a sec.” At her impatient stare, he held up his pointer fingers. “Ten seconds, I promise. Okay, maybe thirty. Ninety, tops! Just—hang on.” 

Then he dashed off in the direction of one of the butlers.

Shrugging, Sasha gravitated to the nearest food table and popped a truffle in her mouth. She’d already reached for a second when she realized the man standing with his back to her was Aldrich.

A slow, vengeful smile spread across her face. 

When Rhys reappeared at her side a couple minutes later and whispered “let’s go” in her ear, Sasha trotted after him, clicking her purse shut again.

—

“Okay, I can’t—I can’t look at you. It’s making me nauseous.”

“Everything makes you nauseous. You have a very sensitive stomach.”

She was stretched out in mid-air, floating merrily in the zero gravity of the shuttle, her dress askew around her legs. The weightless nothingness was a pleasant sensation, not to mention welcome relief for her poor abused feet after a night in heels. 

Rhys, on the other hand, had screwed his eyes shut and somehow managed to turn even paler than usual.

“My stomach is not _sensitive_ , it’s _sensible_ ,” he insisted, still without opening his eyes. “Skag meat is disgusting.”

“You need to eat more protein,” said Sasha. She pushed off against the wall to send herself floating in a circle, an effortless horizontal pirouette. “You’re so skinny.”

He sniffed indignantly. “I’ll have you know I have a very fast metabolism.” 

“I had more muscle mass when I was fifteen.”

“It’s not my fault you’re… Amazonian.” He opened his eyes to glare at her, then lost what little colour remained in his cheeks and clamped his hands over his face. “Oh, God, don’t _spin_.”

She did one last somersault in the air before pulling herself back into the empty seat to the left of him and clicking down the harness. “All right, try not to throw up all that expensive food on me.”

Rhys whined. “Please stop talking about food.”

Sasha laughed. “You big baby.” 

But she pulled his hand into her lap and massaged his palm with her thumbs, and after a minute he relaxed back into his chair. 

When his complexion no longer resembled that of a ghost, he broke the silence. “Did you, uh… did you talk to any of the robots?”

His eyes were still closed—peacefully, now—so he didn’t see the blush spread across her face, or the way she awkwardly shifted in her seat. “Uh… yeah...”

He paused. It looked like he was biting back a smile. “Did you… notice the creepy ‘compliment’ feature?”

The blush on her cheeks faded as she narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Yes…”

“I, um, may have sort of done a _teensy_ tiny little bit—” he opened one eye and held up his right thumb and forefinger centimetres apart to indicate the exact level of teensy tininess “—of recreational reprogramming.” 

“What?” It was meant as a question but came out like a laugh. “What did you do?”

“I was curious, so I wanted to have a look,” he explained, with an unconvincing air of innocence, “and there were a few lines of code in there designed to suppress ‘honesty’ and I may have… sort of… removed them.”

A wicked grin spread across her face. “You didn’t.” 

“That’s what I was trying to check before we left.” He paused. “It, uh, told me my hair looked dumb.”

“So it worked, then.”

“My hair looked fine until _someone_ started grabbing fistfulls of it.”

“I didn’t hear you complaining,” she said breezily. Then, “I may have done something bad, too.”

Rhys watched curiously as Sasha wagged her eyebrows, opened up her bag, and handed him Aldrich’s wallet.

“Probably not enough to kickstart a business,” she commented as Rhys, wide-eyed, pulled out wad of cash. “But I’m sure we can put it to good use.”

“I _told_ you not to steal anything.” It was hard to take the chastising seriously when he sounded so impressed.

“And I told you I wouldn’t get caught.” She shrugged. “Besides, he deserved it.” She took the wallet back, flipping through the rest of its contents with a wrinkled nose. “God, look, he’s a member of a _jelly of the month club_.” 

“What a prick,” Rhys agreed cheerfully. “You’re basically Robin Hood.”

“Right?” Rifling through the last pocket wallet, she clucked her tongue in disapproval. “Wow. Know what the worst of it is?”

“Hmm?”

Sasha heaved a dramatic sigh. “Didn’t even keep the business card I gave him.”

—

The best part about dating Rhys was sleeping in his bed.

Well, perhaps that was unfair. The best part about dating Rhys was that the only reason for doing so was her own pursuit of happiness: no grand scheme or long game or ulterior motive. She was dating Rhys because she wanted to date Rhys.

But the second best thing was definitely the bed. After a lifetime of sleeping on just about every horizontal surface imaginable—but more often than not on a curved, narrow caravan bench—the mattress Rhys had claimed from the bowels of Atlas felt downright luxurious. 

(Rhys said that by Helios’ standards it was adequate at best, but then Rhys also claimed she took up more than half the bed, which she found difficult to believe considering the sheer volume of leg he had, so she’d decided he was an unreliable source of bed-related information.)

So by the time they got back to Atlas, fully exhausted, Sasha wasted no time in kicking off her heels, shedding her ripped dress and uncomfortable bra, and diving into the sheets.

“It’s like being spooned by a cloud,” she announced happily, muffled as she buried her face in a pillow.

Rhys made a noise of combined skepticism and amusement. “If you say so.” 

She shifted her head watch with one eye as he carefully removed his jacket and moved to hang it up. She thought of her dress, piled where it had fallen, and smirked. 

“Sorry I made you come tonight,” he said after a minute, unbuttoning his shirt.

Sasha snorted into her pillow.

He narrowed his eyes. “...Okay, you knew what I meant.” Shrugging off his shirt, he hung it up too. “I know you hated it.”

He sounded a little defeated, so she tried to sound encouraging. “It wasn’t so bad.” 

He sent her a look.

“Okay, so it was,” she admitted. “I hated it. Everyone on that ship was a monster.” 

Her frankness won a half-hearted smile, but it faded quickly. “Yeah… yeah, they kind of were, weren’t they?” He scratched the back of his neck. “It, uh… it really didn’t go as well as I had planned.” 

He turned away to swap his pants for a pair of sweats, and Sasha frowned, propping herself up on one arm. 

“Sorry it didn’t work out,” she said. She offered a conciliatory smile. “For what it’s worth, I think by most people's standards, not being able to connect with assholes is considered an encouraging sign.”

“They _were_ assholes.” He paused and put his hands on his waist. “I… could really use their asshole money, though.” 

Her smile turned wry. “Welcome to Pandora.” 

She reached out to pat the empty space next to her and Rhys gave her a small smile before he climbed into bed beside her. Nestling back into her pillow, she shivered at his cold touch.

“We’ll figure it out,” said Sasha gently, tugging the blanket up under her arm. “I’ll help. And you’re in luck, because making it up as you go along is kind of the family business, and I’m very good at it.”

“Yeah, you are.”

Both his gaze and his voice were warm, and Sasha, aware her cheeks were turning pink again, reached across the gap to run her fingers down his chest, pressing her nails just hard enough to leave tiny white lines. He tilted his chin to watch her do it.

“I was… I was thinking,” he said after a moment, sounding uncertain. “I know you don’t want… I mean, I was just—it’s fine if you don’t want to, it’s just, I’ve been thinking, and—well—”

“ _Rhys_ ,” she said sharply, and he stopped babbling and looked at her. “What is it?”

“Right. Yeah.” He took a deep breath. “I was thinking you should work for me for real. With me, I mean.” He spoke very quickly, like he was rushing through the words before he chickened out. “You know way more about guns and weapons than I do, and you know Pandora, you know what Pandora needs, and you’re just, well, generally pretty great and good at everything, so I thought…”

His voice drifted off and he finished the thought with a nervous shrug. Sasha’s fingers stilled on his chest. She wasn’t sure what to say.

“You… want me to work at Atlas?” 

“I know, I know,” he said immediately, defensively lifting one palm in surrender, “I know it’s probably stupid and it’s not—you know—it’s not, like, your dream job, or anything, and you probably don’t want to, I just—I thought—”

“Rhys.” She tapped his chest. “Shh.” 

He fell quiet, and Sasha swallowed, studying her own fingernails against his pale skin as she tried to collect her thoughts. 

Working for a company like Atlas was not an idea she’d ever entertained before, even an Atlas like the current one, which was comprised of a few stolen deeds, some prototypes and a lot of big ideas. The image of herself with a desk and a nameplate and an actual job title felt like a weird glimpse into some parallel universe. The thought of it was almost laughable.

But Rhys thought she’d be good at it. Rhys wanted to share his weird, beloved corporate baby with her. The thought of _that_ warmed her from head to toe. 

Maybe she’d been pencilled in, after all. 

“It’s… not the worst idea I’ve ever heard,” she said slowly, finally.

“You don’t have to decide right now,” he said, though she could tell his spirits were bolstered by the lack of outright denial. “Just… think about it?”

“Yeah. Okay.” She met his eyes again and sent him a shy smile. “I will.”

He stretched forward to kiss her again, but it was quick and chaste, as they were both tired. Still, his thumb brushed the top of her breast and Sasha raised a pointed eyebrow.

“You might have to rethink that HR policy.”

“Ehhh…” He shrugged and flashed a grin, rolling onto his back. “I’m the boss, I make the rules.”

“Free to date subordinates, then?” She curled up into his side, settling her head against the splotch of blue that ran along his shoulder. 

“‘Subordinates’ is... probably not the right word. Coworkers? Colleagues? Teammates?” he suggested. “Partners?” 

The words became more of a mumble as he went on. Rhys’ arm bent up to play with her hair for a moment, but fell away again before long. She could tell from the rhythm of his breathing that he was starting to drift to sleep.

Sasha extracted herself from him as gently as she could, settling back down onto her own pillow. She might never see the future as far ahead as Rhys wanted to, or as clearly as Fiona did. But there’d be time to work it out.

“Partners,” she repeated, quiet enough not to wake him. “Yeah. Much better.”


End file.
